Page 7 of Finding Lord Landry

Very recently. As in, just a few hours ago.I coughed and took another sip of tea. “Three years ago, the first time,” I mumbled. “It’s been off and on since.”

She nodded slowly. “And you have feelings for him, but you say he doesn’t necessarily return those feelings.”

I inhaled sharply through my nose. “He acts like he doesn’t,” I admitted. “Hell, he acts like he hates me. But then sometimes…”

I thought back to the nights Kenji had allowed himself to fall asleep with me—the times he’d curled against me, searched for my hand, and tucked his face into my shoulder, trusting me implicitly when he was too exhausted to remember all the reasons he didn’t want to trust me.

I let out a breath. “I just want him to give us a chance. Givemea chance. Let me prove to him that I…”

Nan patted my arm. “Have real feelings for him?”

“He doesn’t know. About my family.” I darted a glance at her. The look of empathy on her face bordered a little too close to pity. “And I can’t tell him. Not now. Not after all this time. He’ll think I’m even less responsible than I am.”

Her smile dropped. “You’re the most responsible man I know, Landry. You have two full-time jobs and manage to live a double life without anyone outside the family being any the wiser.”

“Yes, well. Lying but doing it well probably isn’t a point in my favor.” I winked.

Trying to lighten the mood was pretty much my default setting, but it was harder than usual in that moment. I needed to leave off this unpleasant topic so I could search for my equilibrium. Kenji’s departure was still too raw, and I was nearly shivering from cold in my running kit.

I stood. “I need to shower and change before I run us both out of here with my stench. Give me a few?”

I didn’t wait for her response, simply disappeared down the hallway to my bedroom. The firm press of her stare followed me all the way.

As I made my way into the bathroom and turned on the water jets, I wondered at her making such a long trip. Things must be serious with my father, even though he’d seemed okay in December when I’d visited last. I’d stopped in London on my way back from a job in Paris and spent a week listening to my father tell me stories from his travels to Africa in the 1980s to visit his late brother, stories I’d heard a thousand times before and could recite word for word. When he wasn’t regaling me with the same old shit, he became sentimental about how he’d met my mother or about Davencourt Park, the country estate where our ancestors had lived for hundreds of years, thoughhehadn’t lived there full-time in ages.

I hated those visits. Every time I walked into Hawling House in London, I felt invisible chains tightening around my chest. Grief at the slow loss of my father was one part of it. The clock ticking on my freedom was another. And though I’d always known there was an expiry date on my life as Landry Davis, I wasn’t ready to give it—me—up.

I stood under the pounding hot water and let it wash away the dirt and morose feelings. I had no business feeling sorry for myself because one of my many sources of untold wealth was demanding my attention.

What right did I have to throw a pity party? None whatsoever.

I replayed moments from my night with Kenji. The clench of his stomach muscles as I ran my tongue around his nipple. The sound of his breath catching when I murmured the wordbeautifulinto his skin. The scent of his shampoo as I wound a long strand of his hair around my finger and tugged.

I groaned into steamy air. The man was sex on two legs. He was putty in my hands when we were naked together, but he was so fucking stubborn outside of the bedroom.

He was regimented and strict. Exacting and professional. Scarily—sexily—competent. The only time Kenji seemed to allow himself any pleasure was during sex or his damned meditation sessions. And knowing I was the man who got to glimpse the softness behind that hard shell, who got to light the fuse that made his tightly leashed control explode in a white-hot shimmer, felt like a privilege far more precious than anything else Everett DavencourtorLandry Davis could possess.

All these thoughts of Kenji made my dick hard as usual. I stroked myself off to memories of being inside the hot clench of his body. By the time I dried off and pulled on clean clothes, I was shaking from hunger and exhaustion.

When I returned to the living area, I saw takeout bags from Katz’s deli. My mouth watered immediately. “I can’t eat that. I have a shoot in the morning.” It came out whinier than I’d intended, but my disappointment was real. Katz’s pastrami was world-famous. Nan couldn’t help but order it as soon as she landed every time she came to New York.

“I wasn’t sure, so I also ordered you an avocado quinoa salad with hard-boiled eggs.” She gestured to the dining table by the window. “Have a seat, and I’ll get you a… well, I guess you don’t want too much water, do you?”

I let out a breath. “No. They want abs.”

We sat down and started eating. After a few minutes, she couldn’t hold back her strong opinion. “When are you going to stop torturing yourself with this ridiculous diet?”

There was no point in arguing with her because she was right. For the past year, I’d begun hating my modeling career. I’d taken fewer and fewer jobs, only keeping enough of them to be able to still call myself a professional model without feeling like a fraud. I didn’t need the money. Not only had I been born into obscene wealth, but I’d tripped into a second fortune when a group of university friends and I had invented a software program that had sold for billions. And then there’d been my modeling career.

I had more money than sense.

But I also had more money than purpose. If I didn’t want to be the earl yet, and I didn’t want to be a supermodel, and I didn’t want to help run the tech incubator company my friends and I owned, then what was I?Whowas I?

“…you don’t know who you are or what you want. Why would I want to be with someone like that?”

Kenji was right.

“I don’t know how to stop,” I admitted before filling my mouth with enough salad to keep from saying more.

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